OAKLAND -- BART trains will keep rolling -- for now -- after the commuter line and its unions reached a deal Thursday night to extend contract talks for another three days.

Union leaders told their members to report to work Friday but warned that a new deadline to avert a strike loomed for Sunday night. They provided a formal 72-hour notice of a strike for Monday morning if a deal is not reached before then.

The 60-day cooling-off period ordered by Gov. Jerry Brown expired at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday and the unions had refused to say whether they would go on strike Friday morning without a deal. Just 15 minutes before that deadline, however, the unions emerged from the negotiating table and read a statement announcing they would stay on the job for a few more days.

BART lead negotiator Thomas P. Hock, center, leaves Caltrans offices after negotiations with BART management and union members on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013 in Oakland, Calif. Union officials announced they will continue to negotiate throuh the weekend with a new strike deadline of midnight on Sunday Octotber, 13th. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

The unions said they were encouraged that elected legislative leaders and BART directors were getting involved in the talks and that General Manager Grace Crunican was set to arrive at the bargaining table on Friday morning after she previously delegated negotiating duties to others.

"The unions are continuing to negotiate and (we) hope to avoid a strike," said Roxanne Sanchez, president of the local Service Employees International Union. "We want to get this done. The 72-hour notice (for Monday) is because the public is expecting to know something. Everybody wants to know how this will end."

Talks resumed Friday morning.

"We are grateful the Bay Area will not be impacted by our unions for the next few days and that the trains will be running while we continue to negotiate," BART spokesman Rick Rice said in a statement.

Antonette Bryant, president of the local Amalgamated Transit Union, said "there was no significant movement" Thursday in negotiations.

The temporary truce postpones a battle that has already been raging for six months and has resulted in one rail shutdown, two more threatened strikes and plenty of anxiety for Bay Area commuters.

Jim Allison, communications director for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), waits while television reporters position their microphones for his brief press conference, Monday, Oct. 7, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. Both management and union officials said that no progress was being made toward settling their ongoing labor dispute. A 60-day cooling off period imposed by Gov. Jerry Brown expires Thursday night. BART typically carries about 400,000 riders daily. (D. Ross Cameron/Bay Area News Group)
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BART did not actually present a new offer to the unions Thursday after announcing one was forthcoming earlier in the day. According to Rice, the unions said they were "not ready" for a new proposal.

BART's board of directors, which would need to approve a new labor contract, postponed a special evening board meeting until Friday at 10 a.m. because there was no deal to be voted on Thursday.

On Thursday morning, at the regularly scheduled board meeting, union members blasted agency leaders as they have time and again. The BART directors then met in closed session before telling chief negotiator Thomas Hock to submit a new proposal.

Starting this week, at the suggestion of mediators, both sides agreed to a blackout on the contents of the latest proposals as they continued to fight over wage increases and other issues. Still, heading into the day, the union's chief negotiator said both sides were now about $16 million apart -- or half the figure the workers quoted last week.

Another all-day negotiation session ended on a sour note Wednesday night when the two unions representing 2,300 blue-collar workers issued a statement indicating they were close to a deal before management "pulled the rug from underneath" them by taking back a recent offer.

BART denied that and blamed it on a miscommunication.

The average line-level employee at BART made $76,500 in gross pay last year, the most of any transit agency in the state. Workers do not contribute toward their pensions and pay $92 a month toward health care regardless of how many dependents they have.

Workers have agreed to pay more toward their benefits but say they deserve a raise because they have not received a meaningful pay increase in more than four years, even as BART's rider and tax revenues have soared to record levels. But management says its needs to keep employee costs under control as it tries to buy rail cars and make billions of dollars of upgrades to expand service and keep the 40-year-old system running adequately.

BART lead negotiator Thomas P. Hock, right, talks with members of the media as he enters Caltran's offices during negotiations with BART management and union members on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013 in Oakland, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

A BART proposal made public late last week offered 10.25 percent in pay increases and pension contributions of 4 percent over four years. The two unions had countered with the equivalent of 18.4 percent pay increases. The gap between the proposals amounted to about $1,500 in pay increases per year for the average union employee.

Polls have repeatedly shown the public disapproves of a strike and favors management's latest offer. A SurveyUSA poll commissioned by KPIX, which was released Wednesday, showed that among respondents who were keeping up with the negotiations, 54 percent said the unions should accept BART's offer. Just 16 percent thought management should cave. Twenty-two percent wanted them to continue negotiating.

Negotiations began more than six months ago, on opening day of the Oakland A's season. Since then, the war of words and constant disagreement have frustrated Bay Area commuters and led to calls for state legislators to ban BART strikes.

The unions went on strike for 4½ days in July and twice had threatened strikes in August averted by Brown. But no one outside the talks can step in to stop a strike now.

BART, which carries about 200,000 people round trip each day, sees its rider counts grow 30 percent in October compared with the summer. Even so, the July shutdown, which was the first since 1997, slowed freeways and bridges to a crawl and forced standing-room-only on buses and ferries.

BART: Would run charter buses from the East Bay to San Francisco from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. BART lots and garages would be available free as carpool staging areas. The white-curb passenger loading zones could be used as casual carpool pickup and drop-off locations.Ferries: Additional ferry service from Vallejo, Oakland, Alameda/Main Street and Alameda/Harbor Bay.Trucks OK on I-580: Ban on big rigs from San Leandro to Oakland lifted from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays.Carpool hours: Extended to 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. on I-80 between Carquinez Bridge and Bay Bridge; I-680 from north of I-580 to Benicia Bridge; I-880 from San Jose to Bay Bridge; toll plazas at Bay, Carquinez, Benicia, San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges; Highway 84 between Fremont and Dumbarton Bridge; Highway 92 between Hayward and San Mateo Bridge.More info: Call 511 or visit alert.511.org